By Rafe Calder
Build it up. That is the logic of a Thanjavur painting, and it begins before any colour touches it. Wikipedia’s account of the steps starts with a plank and a piece of cloth.
The steps
According to Wikipedia, the steps run as follows. First, canvas is pasted onto a wooden plank with Arabic gum. Second, the canvas is coated evenly with a chalk or limestone paste and a binder, then dried. Third, the main and subsidiary figures are drawn or traced with a stencil or outline. Fourth, gesso work builds the raised areas. Fifth, gold leaf and gems are inlaid in areas such as pillars, arches, thrones and costumes. Sixth, colours are applied to the sketch.
The materials
The article names the plank as traditionally jackfruit or teak, and says plywood has largely replaced both. The paste is French chalk, called gopi, or powdered limestone, mixed with a binding medium. The gesso is a paste of limestone powder and a binder, sukkan or makku. The decoration is gold leaf or gold foil, glass beads, and, rarely, precious or semi-precious stones. Colours were historically natural vegetable and mineral colours, and chemical paints are used today.
Notice what the article does not say. It does not say how thick the gesso is or how many coats go on, and it does not give timings. We do not supply them.
Themes
The article says the paintings show Hindu gods, goddesses and saints, including Radha and Krishna, and episodes from the Puranas, the Sthala-puranas and other religious texts. Occasionally, it says, Jain, Sikh, Muslim and secular subjects appear.
A court art
The article places the roots of the style at about 1600, when the Nayaks of Thanjavur, under Vijayanagara suzerainty, supported the painting of mainly Hindu religious subjects in temples. Painters arrived after the fall of Vijayanagara in 1565, and the Thanjavur Nayak court nurtured them. The style as known today, the article says, likely developed at the Maratha court of Thanjavur, which ran from 1676 to 1855, and reached its recognised form under Serfoji II.
Two details sit awkwardly together. The roots are placed at about 1600, and the painters are said to have arrived after 1565. These are compatible, and they show the article is describing a process and not a single date. We mark both and settle neither.
Recognition
The Government of India recognised the style with a Geographical Indication tag in 2007 to 2008, according to the article. We give the span as stated.
Dates in order
- 1565: the fall of Vijayanagara, after which painters arrived, according to Wikipedia.
- About 1600: the roots of the style under the Thanjavur Nayaks, according to Wikipedia.
- 1676 to 1855: the Maratha court of Thanjavur, according to Wikipedia.
- 2007 to 2008: Geographical Indication recognition, according to Wikipedia.
Side by side
We read one source for this piece, so there is nothing to set beside it. The article’s own account moves from a Nayak origin to a Maratha refinement, and we give it in that order.
What kind of sources these are
A Wikipedia article, which anyone can edit. We read no museum, government or maker’s page. For a style so tied to its materials, a maker’s description of the gold and the gesso would be a better source for everything in the materials section.
Questions a buyer would ask
What is the base: wood or plywood? Is the gold leaf, foil or paint? Is the raised work gesso? What are the colours, natural or chemical? The article says both have been used. Who painted it, and when? We name no painter. Is the subject religious? The article says mainly so. We make no claim on care.
Why the order of work matters
The article’s six steps put gesso before gold and gold before colour. Our reading: this order explains why the raised areas and gilded areas of a finished painting seem to belong to the surface and not to be added at the end. The article does not say this, and the inference is ours. A reader can check it against a painting.
Old materials, new materials
The article sets old against new in three places. The plank was traditionally jackfruit or teak, and plywood has largely replaced both. The colours were historically natural vegetable and mineral ones, and chemical paints are used today. The gold is described as leaf or foil, with no statement about which is more common. A buyer reading a description of a painting should expect these differences and ask which version of each material the piece uses. A painting on plywood with chemical colours and foil is a different object from one on teak with mineral colours and leaf, and both could honestly be called Thanjavur paintings if the maker and seller say plainly what is in them.
What the recognition does and does not say
The article records the Geographical Indication tag and its 2007 to 2008 span, and says nothing about what the tag requires. Our reading: a tag of this kind identifies a style with a place, and tells you less about how any single painting was made. That is our inference, and the article does not state it. We make no claim about what the tag guarantees.
What we left out
We left out prices. We left out any account of how the style is taught or who practises it today, since we did not find one.
Roam first. Shop later.